Where Does Your Hope Lie?

This week, we had a meeting of church leaders here at our very own Woodlane. In my small group, we had a few people currently studying to be preaching elders (church elders who have enough education to preach a solid Sunday morning message). The discussion reminded us pastors of our seminary experiences, particularly our Old Testament classes. Allow me to give you a peephole into that life.

At the seminary level, some classes (particularly Old Testament) are notorious for putting students off balance. Everything they learned since nursery Sunday school gets rocked and you start off this insane journey of faith not knowing which way is up.

Such classes, and our small group discussion, point to a critical question for Christians and non-Christians alike – can we experience life-giving faith when we can’t explain everything written in this text we call the Bible? For Christians, I hope the enormity of the question is clear. For non-Christians, exploring this question keeps us in the discussion one step further, rather than “Well, nobody can explain the exodus flood to me, so I’m done looking at Christianity.”

It’s been said when we wrestle with these kinds of questions, we – like Jacob – should be walking away with a limp. I wrestled with some of this over sabbatical, and I’ve still got a long road of physical therapy ahead to work out this limp (metaphorically speaking…I still run mountains just fine!)

As an apologetics geek…one who looks for ways to explain any controversy about the Bible…this is an image that helped me out. (editor’s note-this analogy can come across like I’m beating up Scripture – not my intent. Hear my analogy as just that – an analogy).

Let’s say somebody typo’ed your birth certificate. They put your father’s name on the mother line and visa versa. Does that mean you don’t exist? Let’s say your marriage license is destroyed in a fire. Does that make you a bachelor or bachelorette again? Both questions, one answer, two words – absolutely not.

Here’s the fact – while Christians hold the Bible in high regard, there are parts we can’t easily explain. But our faith lies not in text on a page, but in the person of Jesus Christ – 100% historically verifiable even by sources that were critical of Christianity.

I know this is getting deep but let me demonstrate this idea by showing you the flip side, which gave me a LOT of peace as an apologetics geek. Let’s say I sit down with a skeptic. Could I answer every single one of their questions about the Bible and they still walk away unsaved? Absolutely. If they don’t trust Jesus for forgiveness, all their new-found “faith” in the text of the Bible does them zero good.

I say this to help stabilize your faith. In a culture growing increasingly more post-Christian (and apparently Rochester is leading the charge!), our one faith text is being questioned more and more. The good news is none of that dents the fact that Jesus gave up His life so that we could have life.

Otherwise, you better keep your birth certificate safe!

Many Blessings,

Pastor Brian